LuxuryMart09, the premier event for luxury brands targeting China’s fast-growing affluent population, is to be held in Shanghai on January 15th 2009.

Now in its third year, LuxuryMart09 is expecting to welcome around 250 senior executives from 120 top brands to attend the prestigious B2B matchmaking event at the Pudong Shangri-La.

The “luxury brand summit” is the leading annual platform for brands to exchange ideas and collaborate on marketing products and services for high-end Chinese consumers.

China is the world’s fastest-growing market for luxury brands, expected to rank second only to Japan by 2015. The country’s “Rich List” includes 1,000 individuals with more than RMB 0.7 billion (USD 1 billion) each in assets and 800,000 millionaires. The event is sponsored by Hurun Report, Chinaâ€™s leading luxury business magazine, globally renowned for its annual “China Rich List” of mainland tycoons and entrepreneurs.

LuxuryMart09 will also announce Chinaâ€™s prestigious “Best of the Best Awards” recognising the top brand and lifestyle preferences of Chinaâ€™s high net worth individuals and now in its fifth year. The awards are decided by a survey of 500 elite consumers and are the largest and most authoritative in China.

Rupert Hoogewerf, founder of LuxuryMart and Hurun Report publisher, said â€œLuxuryMart is an annual, private, peer to peer gathering designed to act as a powerful matchmaker between like-minded luxury professionals and senior luxury brand decision-makers.

These brands change the dynamics of the luxury sector and in a fast-moving industry, personal relationships with other like-minded people and brands play a key role. Exchanging ideas, benchmarking and collaborating on projects can boost creativity as well as businessâ€.